Cybersecurity Governance and Firm Performance in Nigerian Financial Institutions

This study examines the relationship between cybersecurity governance and firm performance among 46 listed financial institutions in Nigeria over the period 2010 to 2024. Employing an ex-post-facto research design and balanced panel regression analysis with fixed effects estimation, we construct a multidimensional Cybersecurity Governance Index (CSGI) that captures board-level cyber oversight, IT audit rigor, cyber risk disclosure quality, appointment of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), and cybersecurity policy robustness. Performance is measured through Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Tobin's Q. Using a dataset of 690 firm-year observations, we control for firm size (FS), firm age (FA), board size (BS), board independence (BI), industry type (INDT), financial leverage (FL), and ownership structure (OS). The results reveal that CSGI exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on all three performance measures, consistent with the tenets of Agency Theory, Signalling Theory, and the Resource-Based View. Board independence and firm size are significant positive determinants of performance, while financial leverage demonstrates a consistent negative association. Post-estimation diagnostics confirm the robustness of the findings. The study contributes novel empirical evidence to the understudied intersection of cybersecurity governance and financial performance in an emerging economy context, offering actionable insights for regulators, boards, and institutional investors in Nigeria.